10 Best Pictures of Galaxy Taken By Hubble Telescope

After a quarter of a century on the job, the Hubble Space Telescope has returned some of the most extraordinary cosmic images ever captured

1. The Cat’s Eye Nebula, one of the first planetary nebulae discovered, also has one of the most complex forms known to this kind of nebula. Eleven rings, or shells, of gas make up the Cat’s Eye. Image released on Sept. 9, 2004

2. Pillars of creation- Originally taken on April 1, 1995, this image has become one of the most iconic to come from the Hubble Telescope. This version, released in 2015, shows a higher resolution image of the region. The pillars are part of a small region of the Eagle Nebula, a vast star-forming region 6,500 light-years from Earth. Image released in Jan. 2015

3.Rising like a giant seahorse from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33. This image shows the region in infrared light. Image released on April 19, 2013

4. Galaxy M106: Renowned astrophotographer Robert Gendler took science data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) archive and combined it with his own ground-based observations to assemble this photo illustration of the magnificent spiral galaxy M106. Image released on Feb. 5, 2013

5. The Crab Nebula : A six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star’s supernova explosion. This composite image was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field. It is one of the largest images taken by Hubble and is the highest resolution image ever made of the entire Crab Nebula. Image released on Dec. 1, 2005

6. Located 1,300 light-years away, the Orion Nebula is the nearest area of star formation to Earth. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five colors with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, to make this picture. Image released on Jan. 11, 2006.

7. The Hourglass Nebula: The nebula, also known as MyCn18, is a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away. The image shed new light on the poorly understood ejection of stellar matter which accompanies the slow death of Sun-like stars. Image released on Jan. 16, 1996

8. The Butterfly Nebula: With a wingspan of over 3 light-years and an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the dying central star of this planetary nebula has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. Image released on Sept. 9, 2009

9. Monkey Head Nebula: Also known as NGC 2174, the nebula lies about 6400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Hubble previously viewed this part of the sky back in 2011 — the colorful region is filled with young stars embedded within bright wisps of cosmic gas and dust. This portion of the Monkey Head Nebula was imaged in infrared using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Image released on March 17, 2014

10. Andromeda: This is the largest and sharpest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy. It is the biggest Hubble image ever released and shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disc stretching across over 40,000 light-years. Image released on Jan. 5, 2015